60 Minutes - 8/9/2020: Know My Name, Giant Panda

Episode Date: August 10, 2020

In an interview with Bill Whiatker, Chanel Miller, the sexual assault victim previously known as "Emily Doe," tells her story for the first time. The partnership between China and America's Smithsonia...n National Zoo has brought the giant panda back from near extinction. Scott Pelley reports. Those stories on this week's "60 Minutes." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:57 A really bad hangover. But you don't deserve to have somebody insert their body parts inside of you. Her name is Chanel Miller, but before now she was known to most of the world as Emily Doe, a sexual assault survivor who endured a trial in which privilege and power seemed to trump victims' rights. You took away my worth, my privacy, my safety, my confidence, my own voice, until today. Chanel Miller's story paved the way for the modern-day Me Too movement,
Starting point is 00:01:35 and tonight she tells her own story. The panda is a curious bear. In the last century, biologists didn't think it belonged in the bear family. Pandas don't hibernate, and though they're virtual vegetarians, they're born to be carnivores. They've been chewing bamboo in the high mountains of China for three million years. Today, they're being bred in captivity to be reintroduced into the wild. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Nora O'Donnell. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes. 60 minutes. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply.
Starting point is 00:02:52 Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. For years, Chanel Miller was known to the world simply as Emily Doe, the name used in a court case to protect her identity. She was sexually assaulted in 2015 by a Stanford University athlete named Brock Turner, who was found guilty of three felonies, including assault with intent to rape. Before his sentencing, Emily Doe stood in the courtroom
Starting point is 00:03:18 and delivered a powerful victim impact statement detailing the emotional trauma of the assault and the legal process had put her through. It instantly went viral, becoming a kind of manifesto for assault survivors all over the world. Chanel Miller reclaimed her identity as the author of that statement and shared her story for the first time with 60 Minutes last September. As you'll see, she chooses her words carefully when she speaks, just as she did when she put them to paper for her best-selling book, Know My Name. So this is where you write?
Starting point is 00:03:57 Mm-hmm. For the last three years, Chanel Miller has been writing her own story. Here are some of the drafts. The 27-year-old majored in literature at UC Santa Barbara and has wanted to be a writer since she was a child. Police reports. She decided to relive the most painful experience of her life because she believes her story, filtered through the glare of the media and restrictive lens of the courtroom remains untold. I'm sure it wasn't your top choice to write a book about this.
Starting point is 00:04:31 It's not the topic I would have chosen, but it was the topic I was given. So start at the top and let them have it. We were there when she recorded her audio book. In January 2015, I was 22, living and working in my hometown of Palo Alto, California. I attended a party at Stanford. She didn't attend Stanford University, but she grew up in its shadow. Why did you decide to go to a fraternity party?
Starting point is 00:05:01 You were out of college at that time. My sister was home for the weekend and it was my way of spending time with her. So people were drinking? Yes. A lot of red cups, like a typical fraternity scene. Do you remember having fun at the party? What were you doing? I was dancing on top of a chair and my sister was sort of coaxing me down to stop embarrassing her. Chanel has never denied she drank a combination of whiskey, vodka, and champagne. You drank until you blacked out. Mm-hmm. She came to about four hours later in a hospital,
Starting point is 00:05:41 surrounded by nurses and a police deputy. She had abrasions all over her body. Her hair was tangled with pine needles. I had no idea how to put those pieces together. How did they tell you what they thought had happened? All they said was that I had been found and that somebody had been arrested and that he had been chased down because he had been acting hinky.
Starting point is 00:06:13 Hinky was the word the detective used. Did they tell you where you were found? Behind a dumpster. What they didn't tell her was that her underwear and cell phone were found on the ground by her body. They also didn't tell her there were witnesses, two of them, who not only saw the attack, they stopped it. Swedish grad students Peter Johnson and Carl Arndt were riding their bikes to the party that night when they saw something disturbing behind the dumpster outside the frat house. We see a couple lying on the ground with one person on
Starting point is 00:06:53 top of the other. He was moving a lot, but we just saw her lying there completely still. They realized the woman was unconscious. Johnson says when he approached them, the man, later identified as Brock Turner, got up and ran. I didn't really have time to think, so I just chased after him. I remember quite vividly, I was on his left side and I got my right leg in front of him and I took my body, my upper body, and threw him over my leg and down on the ground. So, Carl, you go over to help Peter hold Brock Turner down. Yes. He was trying to get loose.
Starting point is 00:07:35 He was squirming, trying to get away? Yeah. Did he seem drunk? Not super drunk. Like, he could talk. And he clearly could run. They held him until police arrived. They also checked on Chanel. She was completely unconscious.
Starting point is 00:07:52 I was trying to like shake her and nothing happened. Chanel was taken by ambulance to the hospital in San Jose. Early that morning, she was examined and told she may have been sexually assaulted. The deputy asked if she'd be willing to undergo a rape kit test. She agreed. Did it sink in, the gravity of your situation? Absolutely not. I just thought I had passed out somewhere,
Starting point is 00:08:21 and that there was a suspicious man at the party who had been behaving in an odd way, and I had no idea that he was connected directly to me in any way. Chanel's sister, who had left the party early and had been frantically calling and looking for her, got a call from Chanel at the hospital and came to pick her up. The sisters agreed not to tell anyone, not even their parents, until Chanel knew more. For 10 long days, she heard nothing, not from the hospital, police, a counselor, nobody. What's going through your head? In order to survive, you just shut everything down. You have to function. You have to go to work in the morning. So it was much easier to just repress everything. Of course, I had questions. I woke up and didn't
Starting point is 00:09:13 have underwear. Why is that? No one tells me where it went. But you just have to keep living. Then one morning at her job at a small tech startup in Silicon Valley, this item popped up on her newsfeed. The words Stanford, rape, and intoxicated, unconscious woman leapt off the screen. She knew it was her. And she learned for the first time that her assailant had penetrated her, with his fingers at the very least. That's how you found out what happened to you? Yes. Reading an article online?
Starting point is 00:09:51 Yes. It was surreal having the news broken to me by the Internet. I was alone, sitting at my desk, surrounded by co-workers, reading about how I was stripped and then penetrated and discarded in a bed of pine needles behind a dumpster. And that's how I figured out all of those elements. And they all added up, and I finally understood. The name Brock Turner was mentioned in the article. Had you heard his name before?
Starting point is 00:10:29 Never. The first thing I did after reading the article was read the comments, and there were many hateful words. What were some of the comments? What was she doing at a frat party? This isn't really rape. Why was she alone? She's the predator because she's older. Why would you ever get that drunk? It was endless. So what do you say to those critics? People who say you did drink until you blacked out. You did make yourself vulnerable. What do you say to those people? Rape is not a punishment for getting
Starting point is 00:11:07 drunk. And we have this really sick mindset in our culture, as if you deserve rape. If you drink to excess, you deserve a hangover, a really bad hangover. But you don't deserve to have somebody insert their body parts inside of you. The day the news broke, she received a call. It was Deputy District Attorney Alalee Kianersi, who told Chanel she would be handling the case. Were there specific elements of this case that stood out to you? I mean, the entirety of it, the fact that it was a Stanford swimmer who was an Olympic hopeful, really a privileged athlete and student. So that stood out, the fact that it was so very clear to anyone who encountered Chanel that evening that she was not conscious, that she was super intoxicated.
Starting point is 00:12:03 So she was in no position to consent. What did his privilege and Stanford have to do with making this more difficult to prosecute? A lot of people were looking at what Brock Turner had to lose versus what he did to Chanel. And so the narrative changed. We were almost on the defense, explaining why Chanel got too intoxicated, instead of focusing the attention on why did he think it was OK? Why did he think that he could take advantage of her when she was in such a vulnerable state? The case received international attention. The media couldn't resist the story of the fallen athlete from one of America's most prestigious schools.
Starting point is 00:12:44 To protect her identity, Chanel was dubbed Emily Doe. Turner was almost always identified by his accomplishments in the pool. When you saw the description of him as a champion swimmer on the Stanford swim team, what did you think of that? I didn't understand why it was relevant when you're also reporting that my lower half was completely exposed, that my necklace was wrapped around my neck, that my hair was disheveled, that my bra was only covering one breast and the rest was pulled out of my dress. I don't understand why it is relevant how quickly he can move across a body of water in the context of that article. Did you feel that that description of him as a championship swimmer
Starting point is 00:13:34 sort of changed the narrative? Yes. They were framing it like he had so much to lose and were not focusing on what had already been lost for me. By then, she had told her boyfriend and parents, but despite their love and support, she felt alone. Chanel told us she became angry, withdrawn, and deeply depressed. I would just sit at work and do nothing. I would stare at the screen, and then I would come home, and I wouldn't sleep. And so physically, I began breaking down. She didn't want anyone to know she was Emily Doe,
Starting point is 00:14:22 the woman in the news. Four years later, the trauma remains just below the surface. I felt if anyone ever found out that that was me, that it would be absolutely humiliating. I felt dirty and embarrassed. My dream is to write children's books. I felt no parent is going to want me as a role model. If I'm just a discarded, drunk, half-naked body behind a dumpster, nobody wants to be that. How did you carry on?
Starting point is 00:15:20 Well, when I was reliving all of this, I thought, well, the same night the assault happened, a miracle also happened, which was that I was saved. And thinking of the two Swedes who knew to do the right thing and who wanted me really to be okay, always gave me hope. So they changed the story. They changed the story. They changed the entire trajectory of my life. When we come back, the trial, the sentencing, and Chanel Miller's compelling courtroom address to her assailant
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Starting point is 00:17:12 Chanel Miller would become an anonymous icon for assault survivors the world over. As we reported last September, the trial and media scrutiny were traumatizing for the then 23-year-old. What was it like when you finally realized that you were going to have to face Brock Turner in court? It was absolute dread. And I went to a therapist, almost like a personal trainer, and said, you have three weeks to get me mentally ready. But until then, I thought, you have to drag me into the courtroom because I'm not going to go. The case would become a media maelstrom. Chanel Miller told us that as bad as the previous 14 months had been, nothing prepared her for the cold, adversarial, and intimidating atmosphere inside the courtroom. I remember standing outside the courtroom doors,
Starting point is 00:18:16 and there's a very thin sliver of window in the door where you can look in. And I remember seeing the back of Brock's head and his neck. And I thought, wow, this is him. It is incredibly difficult for a victim of sexual assault to walk into court in front of their perpetrator and recount the worst thing that happened to them in a room full of strangers. Deputy District Attorney Alale Kianersi had charged Brock Turner with three felony sex crimes. Rape charges were dropped because there was no evidence of intercourse, which was required in California at the time. But she was convinced she had a strong case because of the two Swedish eyewitnesses. They were integral. Without them, we would not know the identity of Brock Turner.
Starting point is 00:19:08 They chased him down, and they physically held him down until police arrived. He's an athlete. This is somebody who got into school because of his physical prowess. And these are two engineering grad students. And they're really the most important reason why Chanel didn't suffer a more devastating sexual assault. Because I believe, and I argue this to the jury, that had they not
Starting point is 00:19:32 stopped him, he would have completed the rape. So what was the hardest part about making your case to the jury? Chanel had no memory. She was completely unconscious or too intoxicated to remember the immediate moments before. So we had a perpetrator who was able to write the script. Turner's first draft of that script was his police interrogation, conducted just hours after the attack. He told a detective he met Chanel outside the frat house. They started kissing and that he followed her holding hands behind the dumpster. He said he placed his hand between her legs and she seemed to enjoy it. He also told police he didn't recall running when the Swedish grad students interrupted them. But when Turner got on the witness stand 14 months later, his story changed.
Starting point is 00:20:30 Now, he said, he recalled meeting and dancing with Chanel inside the fraternity, asking her to go back to his dorm room, leaving together, slipping and falling and laughing. Then, he said, he specifically asked her if he could touch her intimately, and she said yes. And now he admitted running from the Swedish grad students, who he claimed attacked him. I thought you are bound by the truth. I thought those are the rules.
Starting point is 00:21:02 That's how court works. You wrote that this version of events sounded like a poorly written young adult novel. Yes. There was a lot of tumbling and laughing. Sounds at great odds with what he said shortly after having been arrested. It was all completely new. He had written a new narrative. So in this new narrative, you're in agreement. The new narrative was extremely convenient because he needed consent. He needed the word yes. Turner would add one more lurid detail. He claimed under oath that she had climaxed.
Starting point is 00:21:49 Oh, I was livid. I didn't understand why it had been allowed to go that far. I think you told us before that you felt as though you had been assaulted a second time. I felt like I was assaulted multiple times. Every time, you're reliving this. Like, this is the list of body parts submitted as evidence. The trial took its toll. The barrage of questions, the mortifying photos of her half-naked and unconscious body
Starting point is 00:22:21 shown in open court. And worst, she says, Turner's defense attorney, constantly objecting and cutting her off to make her words fit his narrative. And I remember in court, the defense attorney always said, Chanel has no memory. Chanel has no memory. And I remember sitting there and thinking, I will remember everything. I will remember every remark. I will remember the lighting inside this courtroom.
Starting point is 00:22:54 I will remember the texture of the defense attorney's hair. I will remember the depth of the pain you made me feel. I will remember it, and I will record it it and I will write it so that it will not be lost. Chanel poured all of those memories, feelings and frustrations into her memoir, Know My Name. With anguish and humor, she takes on a criminal justice system she says fails the most vulnerable. I want to read something you wrote. This was not a quest for justice, but a test of endurance. Swearing under oath was just a made-up promise.
Starting point is 00:23:35 Honesty was for children. That's what the courtroom experience felt like to you? Yes. After Brock's testimony, it felt like all rules had been abandoned. He will go to any end to come out of this without a guilty conviction. And for me, it felt like how many times can we make her relive this? After all those traumatic days, you get the verdict. Tell me about the verdict. My heart was beating extremely loud. It was deafening. It was really hard for me to focus, and I was just waiting for the sound of guilty. And she heard it. All 12 jurors found Brock Turner guilty of all three felony counts.
Starting point is 00:24:27 But it wasn't over. The sentencing was two months away, and Chanel was asked by the deputy DA to write a victim impact statement, a letter to the judge to inform his decision. It's basically documentation of your thoughts and feelings throughout this process. And I majored in literature, which was basically four years of talking about my feelings and reading about other people's feelings. So I thought, wow, there's an assignment that exists in the world that I was made to do. She had been keeping notes on her iPhone throughout the process, and in one impassioned all-nighter, she wove them into a defiant first-person narrative.
Starting point is 00:25:14 A few days before the sentencing, she gave it to the prosecutor. When I first read her letter, I immediately shared it with people because I thought, this is so good. This is what we see victims go through, what we know that they go through, but it's never been summarized in such an articulate and profound way. Chanel recently read those words for her audio book. Your Honor, if it is all right, for the majority of this statement, I would like to address the defendant directly.
Starting point is 00:25:47 You don't know me, but you've been inside me, and that's why we're here today. Chanel spoke directly to her assailant in court. She says she noticed people crying. Brock Turner wouldn't look at her. Your damage was concrete, stripped of titles, degrees, enrollment. My damage was internal, unseen. I carry it with me. You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my safety, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today. As he handed down his sentence, Judge Aaron Persky acknowledged Chanel's words, but also cited the defendant's good character, the fact that he'd been drinking, and the impact prison would have on his life. Judge Persky sentenced Turner to six months in jail,
Starting point is 00:26:46 a sentence at the low end of state guidelines. With good behavior, he'd walk free in 90 days. Your prosecutor had been asking for six years. Yes. How did that hit you? I was in shock. Seriously, I just put aside a year and a half of my life so he could go to county jail for three months. There are young men, particularly young men of color, serving longer sentences for nonviolent crimes, for having a teeny weeny bit of marijuana in their pockets. And he's just been convicted of three felonies. And he's going to serve one month for each felony. How can you explain that to me? Chanel didn't think her voice had been heard, but it had.
Starting point is 00:27:41 The news website BuzzFeed asked to publish her impact statement in its entirety. Without giving it much thought, she agreed. there one last time. You know, who's going to sit and read through this entire thing? But then the views started trickling in. And soon, it was 100,000, then 500,000. And by the end of the day, it was a million. Within four days, it hit 11 million. By then, her statement had been shared globally, published by newspapers, and read aloud in its entirety on TV. Members of Congress staged readings in the Capitol. You have dragged me through this hell with you. And so did people all over the world. You don't know me, but you've been inside me.
Starting point is 00:28:40 And thousands of emails and letters addressed to Emily Doe flooded the courthouse, eventually making their way to her kitchen table. So these started coming in the next day. The next day. And it was really like medicine. Reading these was like feeling the shame dissolve, you know, bringing all the light in. You heard from a number of survivors? So many survivors. And sometimes they would say, you are the first person I'm telling this to, or this is the first time I've been able to speak in six years. In the wake of the sentencing, there was a national uproar. And after a contentious special election, Judge Aaron Persky became the first judge to be recalled from California's bench in more than 80 years. The case also led to significant changes
Starting point is 00:29:34 in California law, setting mandatory prison sentences for anyone convicted of assaulting a person who is unconscious or intoxicated and expanding the definition of rape to include non-consensual sexual penetration. I mean, that's democracy in action. Within 90 days, the law was changed. All because of her words and her strength. What do you think of that? I'm extremely proud of that.
Starting point is 00:30:01 I'll take the defeat of a light sentence for a change in the law. Two bills were signed into law by California Governor Jerry Brown. Alalee mailed me a copy of the signed document, like a certificate that granted me the right to sleep peacefully, knowing this botched sentencing would not be repeated. I began to believe again in justice. After the trial, Brock Turner was required to register as a sex offender. His appeal of his felony convictions was unanimously rejected by three judges.
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Starting point is 00:31:16 The adjective they use is mong, which translates cute like a baby. Until recently, the giant panda was on its way to extinction, but then it was saved by its one evolutionary advantage. It's adorable. In 2016, the panda's conservation status was upgraded from endangered to just vulnerable. Because the giant panda is China's national symbol, the Chinese have worked four decades to perfect breeding the bears in captivity. This past fall, we first told you how they've achieved one of the biggest successes in conservation. But there is more work to do. The next step is introducing captive pandas into the wild.
Starting point is 00:32:03 That research slowed after a few freed bears were found dead and as you're about to see no Chinese scientists can afford to lose even one baby cute cat bear. Giant pandas have been chewing bamboo for about three million years. But they were so elusive in the high mountains of China, pandas weren't discovered by Western naturalists until 1869. Today, their fans know where to find them. Each morning, humans compete for position at the Qingdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in central China.
Starting point is 00:32:50 A ticket is about eight bucks. Some days there are 100,000 visitors, so yes, that's $800,000 a day. But the experience is priceless. If these bears were in the wild, they'd be rare and solitary. They would be in alpine forests as high as 13,000 feet, and we saw, about 30 feet up, how they went unnoticed for so long. At the research base, each bear is known by name, liked online, and wrapped in the flag.
Starting point is 00:33:29 A selfie with China's national symbol is a tap of patriotism. When I'm out on the street, and if anybody asks me about what I do, I tell them I work with giant pandas. They immediately thank me, and then they follow it up with, that is our national treasure. Enriching the treasure is the work of Mark Valitutto, a wildlife veterinarian from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, on loan to the Chengdu Research Base. And so what we see here is actually a normal, healthy panda lung and a normal, healthy panda heart.
Starting point is 00:34:08 The Smithsonian has helped propagate pandas since China sent Richard Nixon home with a pair in 1972. Back then, China barely had two to spare. By the 1980s, there were only about 1,200 left in China's bamboo forests, which humans were cutting down. Is bamboo the only thing they eat? 99% of their diet in the wild is bamboo. A forest is delivered every day to the Qingdu base. The common name, panda panda means bamboo eater. But because this member of the grass family is so low in nutrition, each bear spends up to 16 hours a day shredding 40 pounds of
Starting point is 00:34:55 leaves and stems. And that is hardly enough to keep him alive. So the rest of the day, the bears burn as few calories as possible. Even mating is incredibly rare. Only once a year can a female be prepared for breeding, and that is within a very small three-day window. A female panda is capable of breeding three days a year? Exactly. Very small time. A very small time for a very small bear. And how old are these cubs?
Starting point is 00:35:34 One month. Dr. Wu Kanju told us when these cubs are newborn, they average about four ounces, the size of a stick of butter. And how many cubs do you bring into the world in a year? This year is five babies. Of the five cubs that are born here this year, how many do you expect to survive? All of them.
Starting point is 00:36:03 About half the time, pandas have twins, but the mother can't care for both. In the wild, the smaller, the weaker twin will be left off to die because the mother doesn't have enough energy to produce the amount of milk that's required for two babies. But in captivity, twins are fed in the nursery, and with a touch, mom is called to duty to nurse the twins one at a time so both survive. The cubs' eyes won't open for about six weeks, so mother helps him to her breast. And like every nursing mom, a change of position helps, especially when her back is killing her. The cubs are dependent up to three years. She'll raise only five or maybe eight in her lifetime.
Starting point is 00:36:52 How big do they become? So the females can be up to maybe around 200 pounds, and the males up to 300 pounds. Why are they black and white? You know, that's a very interesting question. It's a mechanism to protect themselves. Like many, many other animals out there that they black and white? You know, that's a very interesting question. It's a mechanism to protect themselves, like many, many other animals out there that are black and white or various different colors. It's camouflage? You know, pandas love the snow, so the white parts
Starting point is 00:37:15 really help them hide in the snow, whereas the black would be presumptive of shadows. The panda is a curious bear. In the last century, many biologists didn't think it belonged in the bear family. Pandas don't hibernate, and though they're virtual vegetarians, they have the digestive tract of a carnivore. Panda nutrition was a mystery when Dr. Hao Rong came here nearly 30 years ago. She's director of research and told us that the base started as a shelter for injured pandas that had been rescued. There were very few pandas, she said. All of them were seriously ill,
Starting point is 00:37:59 close to impossible to breed. We were also broke. I was the only scientist. You had a dozen pandas. Yes. How many do you have now? Now it's 200. 200 healthy pandas have grown from the research into nutrition and understanding those fleeting female hormones. It's gone so well that a new area of research has opened, panda geriatrics. The bears live about 20 years in the wild, but up to 35 in the company of man.
Starting point is 00:38:38 In 1937, a leading American naturalist described the giant panda as an extremely stupid beast, dull and primitive. But Mark Valitutto showed us pandas understand commands. The whistle signals something good is about to happen, generally involving apple slices. Then, on cue, the bear volunteered its arm through the bars to a metal tray and gripped a handle. It's having a blood test. All of the pandas, the adult pandas here, are trained specifically to offer their arm for a blood sample. It really helps us as
Starting point is 00:39:21 veterinary animals from having to be anesthetized and allows the animal to be an active participant in their health. And that's it. I've seen people throw a bigger fuss than he did. They're incredibly complex creatures, just like many other bear species or carnivorous species like dogs and cats. Like dogs, pandas come at the sound of their name. They know their day will start with apples and continue at the endless bamboo buffet. But success in captivity does not necessarily mean salad days for the species.
Starting point is 00:40:11 To thrive genetically, they must come home to the wild. This is really an exciting time because they're doing so well in captivity, and we can really consider them safe. That's not so for the wild populations. Melissa Songer is a Smithsonian conservation biologist working at the foot of Mount Ching Chong near the center of China. This is the Chengdu Field Research Center and most people know it as Panda Valley And it was established for the purpose of preparing captive pandas for release into the wild. One of the amazing things that we saw is how well trained they are. But it strikes me that that's a blessing and a curse.
Starting point is 00:40:56 They don't have the opportunity to learn how to find food or defend against predators. Even mating is very complex in the wild. So yes, they're highly trained, but they aren't really trained very complex in the wild. So yes, they're highly trained, but they aren't really trained to be in the wild. Then do you train them to be wild? And if so, how do you do that? They're not going to be fed. They're going to have to move around and find food and taking it step by step. So acclimatizing them to a very different situation is an important phase before full release. Like sending the kids off to college. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:41:29 There are fewer than 2,000 wild pandas living in only three mountainous provinces of China. They're segregated into small groups, cut off from one another by roads, farms, and villages. About half of those populations are less than 10 pandas, and so that kind of puts them at risk for losing genetic diversity. It puts them at risk for other events, natural disasters, diseases that might come through. So it's a dangerous number. To reduce the danger, two research bases are testing competing ideas.
Starting point is 00:42:01 One from a research station called Wulong minimizes contact with people to the point of dressing the trainers in panda suits that are scented with panda urine so the bears don't even get a whiff of humanity. The other approach encourages the human relationship in case a panda needs to be rescued. While the bears walk on the wild side, they're monitored with radio collars in case they get into trouble. So far, 14 pandas have been released. Three have died. But those few failures have slowed the research because if a panda is killed, it's not just some bear. It's a bear with a name and a million likes on its web page.
Starting point is 00:42:53 Anytime you release a captive animal to the wild, you're taking a risk. And you prepare as best you can, but there are things you can't really prepare for. One of the pandas who died was attacked by dogs. Another appears to have fallen from a tree. The captive-born pandas take longer to establish territory, but for the most part, they fit in. China says it will soon spend more than a billion dollars on a 10,000 square mile panda national reserve to connect those pockets of wild bears. It suggests that species can be saved. It absolutely does. But more than that, what's even better than the survivability of this species is that they are an umbrella species, meaning that the care that we provide for the pandas
Starting point is 00:43:41 and the tracts of land that we preserve will also save a whole multitude of other species that also need our care that a lot of people don't even know about. Which raises a fair question. If a multitude of species is saved, if climate benefits from 5 million acres of forest reserve, are we saving the panda? Or is the panda saving us?
Starting point is 00:44:21 I'm Leslie Stahl. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.

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